A Christmas Past offers a nostalgic peek into the Yuletide pleasures of the early 1900s. Evoking the Victorian charm of Currier and Ives prints, these picturesque comedies and tender dramas were produced as cinematic Christmas cards offered to moviegoers of the silent era

Included in this collection of archival rarities, most of which were produced at Thomas Edison's studios, are the 1910 version of Dickens's immortal A Christmas Carol, a heartwarming melodrama by D. W. Griffith (A Trap For Santa), as well as the first screen version of Clement Moore's 1822 poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

These films have been digitally mastered from original 35mm elements and are accompanied by a wistful new score by Al Kryszak -- performed by a variety of instruments including harp, violin, and Christmas handbells -- which beautifully enhances the delicate shadings of each of these rare and fascinating treasures.

The first golden age of cinema comedy began in 1910, when the women’s rights movement was expanding and around the world people were re-thinking gender roles, love, social relationships and attitudes to domestic responsibilities.

In the vaults of international archives we discovered a unique legacy: films featuring the first generation of female comedy stars such as Tilly and Sally, Cunégonde, Mistinguett, Rosalie, Lea and Gigetta. Sixteen of these irresistible comedies were selected for the DVD, along with contemporary newsreel footage of suffragette action in the UK and USA.

Coming to us from a hundred years ago, the films are not only first-rate documents but strikingly relevant even today. Fresh, fun and surprisingly unbuttoned in their approach, they can liberate through laughter. They demonstrate how the new mass medium of cinema, a highly popular amusement in 1910, related crucially to its audience’s existential concerns, offering new role models and counter-models — and of course wonderful entertainment.

Since 2003, the Cineteca di Bologna and its International Festival of Film Archives Il Cinema Ritrovato present annually the programme series A Hundred Years Ago, with the aim of bringing the world and the cinema of 100 years ago into the reality of today. This experimental research project creates, year by year, a history of the cinema in its most varied and dynamic period, using the art of programming as an instrument of interpretation.

Based on the festival programme of 2009, this DVD provides a concise view of the European film production in the year 1909, in 22 surprising, beautiful and hilarious films from nine European Film Archives.

Adapted from Hwang Seok-young's novel, A Road to Sampo is the final and posthumous work of director Lee Man-hee. Young construction worker Young-dal (Baek Il-seop) meets a middle-aged man named Jeong (Kim Jin-kyu), who is on his way back to his hometown after serving time in prison and wandering from one construction site to another. It has been ten years since Jeong has seen his hometown of Sampo. Young-dal and Jeong meet Baek-hwa (Moon Suk), a runaway bar hostess, at a restaurant in town and the three of them begin their journey together. Young-dal and Baek-hwa, who argued constantly at first, soon become attached to each other, and the group travels to the train station, each reminiscing about his or her past as they go. At the train station, from which the train to Sampo departs, Young-dal and Baek-hwa part ways. Arriving in Sampo, Jeong is shocked to see how his hometown has changed.

Based on the novel by Iris Murdoch, director Dick Clement’s black comedy about the sexual escapades of upper crust Brits is a terrific satire of swinging 60’s London with a fantastic cast. Upon learning that his wife Antonia (the beautiful Lee Remick) is having an affair with his best friend, Palmer (Richard Attenborough), who is also her psychiatrist, Martin Lynch-Gibbon (Ian Holm) is plunged into agony. Martin’s longstanding mistress Georgie (Jennie Linden) is ecstatic with the hope that Martin, now free from Antonia, will marry her — but Martin is too busy trying to woo his wife back to pay much attention to Georgie, leaving her free to explore other partners. Throw in a few more characters/love partners: Martin’s brother, and Palmer’s sister (Clive Revill and Claire Bloom), and the finale of this boudoir version of musical chairs becomes impossible to guess! Newly remastered.

Pola Negri, Gloria Swanson’s great rival at Paramount in the 1920s, stars in this sly comedy-drama as an Italian Countess who flees Europe after the breakup of her latest love affair. The Countess ends up at a distant cousin’s house in Maple Valley—somewhere in the American Midwest. This film (directed by Malcolm St. Clair) pokes fun at both the worldly Europeans as well as the rubes in mid-America.

No sooner does Negri arrive in Maple Valley than trouble starts. She catches the eye of a lovesick young man, Charles Emmett Mack, and the local District Attorney, Holmes Herbert, who is on a crusade against sin. Like a cat with a mouse, Negri enjoys toying with both men as she slinks (wild costumes with tons of beads) through a series of parties where yokel guests pay 25 cents to "Meet the Countess."

Wearing lots of eye makeup and outrageous costumes, Negri has fun as the worldly woman who drinks, smokes in public, and (gasp!) has a tattoo on her forearm. There is a funny scene where Negri matches tattoo art with her cousin, Chester Conklin. Others in the cast include Lucille Ward as Lou, Dot Farley and May Foster as the gossipers, and Robert Dudley.

Polish-born Negri was a huge star in the 20s but could not make the transition to sound films in Hollywood She made one American talkie, A Woman Commands (1932) then went back to German cinema through the 30s and 40s. The flamboyant Negri was famous for throwing herself on Rudolph Valentino’s coffin, claiming they had been engaged. Mack was tragically killed in a car crash in 1927 while filming The First Auto. British actor Herbert remained a character actor in films thru the 50s. Conklin was a familiar sight in silent films with his brushy moustache; he had been one of the famous Keystone Cops for Mack Sennett.

This DVD also contains a very funny 1924 short film, The Golf Bug, starring Monty Banks, who was a well-known comic of the era. Not much plot but some very funny sight gags. Too bad Banks is not better remembered; he was funny.

An analysis of the style and vision of Abbas Kiarostami, the world’s most iconic Iranian filmmaker, through the lens of his earliest work, including his first short film (Bread & Alley, 1970) and, particularly, his first feature, The Report. This early example of Kiarostami’s work gives insight into his poetic, humanistic tendencies, combining allegorical storytelling with a documentary, neo-realist sensibility, and often exploring the very nature of film as fiction, that have pervaded his work ever since, including such recent international sensations as A Taste of Cherry and Certified Copy. Exclusive interviews with film critics, historians and scholars (including the late great Andrew Sarris) and those directly involved in the making of The Report provide a look at how the career of this master independent auteur began and was shaped.

Accidentally Preserved: Rare and Lost Silent Films from Vintage 16mm Prints is a collection of nine short films made from 1920-1928, presented in new HD transfers with new musical scores on piano or theatre organ by Ben Model. The films are all new to DVD, and three of them have not been seen by anyone in several decades. During the 1930s and 1940s companies like the Kodascope and Universal Show-At-Home libraries made 16mm copies of silent movies for people to rent and watch at home. It was like Netflix for the art deco era. Because these movies were on 16mm safety film, many of them have outlived the original 35mm nitrate prints of silent films that are now lost or extremely rare. It's as if these movies were… accidentally preserved. Renowned silent film accompanist/historian Ben Model has taken nine of the rare and lost silent films in his 16mm collection and produced this Accidentally Preserved DVD, bringing these rarities to a new audience in new HD digital transfers. Each film on this DVD has a new musical score by Ben Model performed on piano or theatre organ. Unavailable to the public for decades, these delightful comedy shorts -- as well as the lost, unknown Elgin Watch factory film -- return to screens.

Accidentally Preserved: Rare and Lost Silent Films from Vintage 16mm Prints is a DVD series of rare/lost silent film shorts, presented in new digital HD transfers with new musical scores on piano or theatre organ by Ben Model. This second DVD release in the series contains 9 more rare/lost silent film shorts. The films on volume 2 are all new to DVD, and two of them have not been seen by anyone in several decades. Renowned silent film accompanist/historian Ben Model has taken eight more of the rare and lost silent films in his 16mm collection – plus one from the collection of film archivist Dino Everett – and produced this 2nd Accidentally Preserved DVD, bringing these rarities to a new audience in new HD transfers. Each film on this DVD has a new musical score by Ben Model performed on piano or theatre organ. Unavailable to the public for decades, these delightful shorts return to screens to entertain us once more.

DVD PRESENTATION: Accidentally Preserved: Rare and Lost Silent Films from Vintage 16mm Prints is a DVD series of rare/lost silent film shorts, presented in new digital HD transfers with new musical scores on piano or theatre organ by Ben Model. This third DVD release in the series contains 9 more rare/lost silent film shorts.

African Metropolis is a compilation of six short fiction films, set in six major African cities, a unique partnership towards new African cinema.

The films from Abidjan, Cairo, Dakar, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi tell urban tales about life in African metropolises. Over 50 percent of the continent’s total population now lives in cities and vital urban cultures are forming and transforming – fast, and with growing complexity. In African cinema, the shift is towards urban stories, with less focus on the traditional, rural Africa that dominated in the past.

Rodrigo García (1964) is author, set designer and director. Originally from Argentina, he has lived and worked in Madrid since 1986, where he founded his own theatre company, La Carnicería Teatro. He makes theatre in a very experimental and personal way, always researching a personal language, far away from traditional forms of theatre. On his own terms, he has been very much influenced by the writing of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, and later by Heiner Müller, Thomas Bernhard, Louis Ferdinand Céline and Peter Handke. His texts have been performed and translated many times. For Macbeth imagenes (1987), Reloj(1988), Notas de Cocina (1994) and El Padre (1994) he has received several theatre awards.

Rodrigo García (1964) spent his childhood and adolescence in the Yparraguirre of Grand Bourg slums, in the province of Buenos Aires in Argentina. He worked as a greengrocer, butcher, messenger and publicist, jobs he gave up to devote himself to theatre.

Moving first to Madrid, then Asturias, he has presented his work in association with, among others, the Teatro Pradillo, Madrid, the Théâtre National de Bretagne, the Avignon Festival, the Venice Biennale and the Festival d’Automne in Paris. Rodrigo García is a director who ‘creates texts that explode like bombs’, an actor and a video maker. No ordinary craftsman, his works bring together elements of the past and today’s popular culture. With his company, La Carnicería Teatro, he has developed a surprising theatre language in which moving bodies map out the new rituals of everyday life. His sources cannot be pigeonholed, as they cross the centuries with no concern for chronology: Quevedo, Beckett, Céline, Thomas Bernhard, Buñuel or Goya in his black period. He also refuses to shut himself up in a theatre ‘written only for specialists and working according to codes and dogma.’ His writing takes its inspiration from the streets in which he grew up, ‘in this ordinary suburb of Buenos Aires, among mates who would become workers or masons.’ His dream is of a theatre where ‘anyone can push open the door’ without hesitating on the step. His writing is an extension of the reality that strongly inspires him; its strength lies in the poetic dimension that he adds to it.

Albert Capellani (1874-1931) came from the theatre, […] when Pathé recruited him as a director in 1905. Capellani brought to the film world many colleagues from his time in the theatre. He also brought to the cinema a totally new way of directing actors. From his earliest, shortest films his mise-en-scène is recognizable by its subtle expressiveness, choreography and the use of asides.

In 1906 the scènes dramatiques were very new. This became Capellani’s preferred genre, and he contributed much to its rapid development. He specialized in sweeping narratives, interweaving multiple locations and protagonists so as to endow even the short films with grandeur and breadth. He was also the first director to develop the short scènes dramatiques into long-form works such as the 1908L’Assommoir (France’s first feature-length work) and Les Misérables (1912).

Around 1902 to 1908 by far the longest films were being produced in the scènes féeries et contes series, and this is probably why Capellani made this genre his second favorite. The stage féerie was entertaining, ironic, spectacular and full of special effects; and Capellani féerie films, such as Le Pied de Mouton and Cendrillon are distinguished by these same qualities.

Capellani personifies the grandeur, quality and creativity of the Pathé Company during its ten most glorious years. He was a representative of Paris culture, a man of literature, of prestigious theatre productions, of stars –and of impressive, meticulously staged costume dramas. He was a great, versatile talent, an innovative filmmaker and a successful producer. From 1915 to 1922 Capellani worked in the USA, where he made about 25 films. He came back to France but his career was at an end; he never managed to bring into being his planned film version of Werther, and died in 1931.

THE DVD
Between his debut film, Le Cheminau (1905), and his second version of the same book, Les Misérables (1912), Capellani made about 70 to 80 films, of which slightly more than half are still extant. For this DVD twelve titles have been selected from the years 1905 to 1911. They are not arranged in chronological order, but divided into two programs, with six films relating to the 20th century, the other six to the 19th. Program 1 starts with a 1911 film and then works backwards in time until 1906, where Program 2 takes over with the earliest of all the films, from 1905, and then moves forward until 1909, so that the films form a continuous loop. For the pre-WWI cinema and Capellani’s 1905-1911 films belong to both the 20th century and the 19th: Eric Hobsbawm’s “long 19th century” only comes to an end in 1914.

The film company Det skandinavisk-russiske Handelshus (Scandinavian-Russian Trading) produced 25 feature films in the period 1911-13. The company changed name to Filmfabriken Danmark in 1913 and produced another 71 feature films until 1919, after which only educational and documentary films were produced up until the company's liquidation in 1923. The two films on this DVD are presumed to be the only surviving from Det skandinavisk-russiske Handelshus. The company specialized in sensational topics, and the success of The Flying Circus was soon followed by its sequel, The Bear Tamer, in which Alfred Lind played the title role, wrote the script, directed and shot the film.

THE FLYING CIRCUS
Directed by/ Alfred Lind
Author/ Carl Otto Dumreicher
Manuscript/ Alfred Lind
Cinematography/ Alfred Lind
Set-design/ L.A. Hjarne
Cast/ Rasmus Ottesen, Emilie Otterdahl, Richard Jensen, Lilli Beck, Kirstine Friis-Hjort, Charles Løwaas, Stella Lind.
Premiere/ Victoriateatret 20.03.1912
46 min./ Denmark/ Danish intertitles/ English and Dutch subtitles.
The early Danish film" Den Flyvende Cirkus", directed by Herr Alfred Lind, has all those circus characteristics ( it must be noted that this film was produced by the Danish Scandinavian-Russian Trading Company that often had a circus background in their movies ). It tells the story of a high-wire artist who is in love with the mayor's daughter; Thanks to his talents, he saves the life of his beloved in a fire but when he wants to marry her, the mayor firmly rejects such a foolish idea. A poor acrobat as a son-in law? Never! Now if the artist were to be a wealthy man, that would show he's a man of principles, ja wöhl!. But those lovers will have another obstacle to their impossible love: Damen Ula, the circus snake charmer who opposes the relationship because she herself loves passionately the high-wire artist.

THE BEAR TAMER
Directed by/ Alfred Lind
Author/ Alfred Lind
Manuscript/ Alfred Lind
Cinematography/ Alfred Lind
Cast/ Lilli Beck, Alfred Lind, Peter Fjeldstrup, Richard Jensen, Holger-Madsen.
Premiere/ Victoriateatret 08.05.1912
40 min./ Denmark/ Dutch intertitles/ English and Danish subtitles.
Extra: DAREDEVIL OF THE MOVIES (1923) with Emilie Sannom.
MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT/ NEIL BRAND
Due to the big success of "Den Flyvende Cirkus"(The Flying Circus), Herr Alfred Lind decided to direct a sequel, "Bjornetaemmeren" (The Bear Tamer). This time Herr Alfred also wrote the script, photographed the film and played the principal character of the film… that it to say, the bear tamer.

The circus troupe is bigger than in the last adventure. But don't worry; Damen Ula, the circus snake charmer is here for good, tough and untamed as always. She quickly forgot her affair with the high-wire artist and thanks to her charms, makes a bear tamer that walked into the circus feel randy.

The two circus lovers decide after a few weeks to marry each other and include the bear and the snake in their happy and savage life. But to be a circus snake charmer is not enough for Damen Ula. So thanks to a ballet master with a peculiar sense of discovering new dancing talent, she decides to become a ballerina and performs the bizarre Indian snake dance at the theater.

In the variety show she flirts with a moor actor or …even better... with a wealthy man. The fact that she is a married woman doesn't bother her. However, her husband does not share this opinion. He decides to put an end to this, the irresolute and liberated life of her wife. Thanks to his skill at taming bears, the bear tamer finally will accomplish the difficult task of taming his wife.

"Bjornetaemmeren" is a very interesting sequel that put together melodrama and comedy in good proportions; the circus background of the film is now united with the variety show (a speciality of the Danish Scandinavian-Russian Trading Company).

This supplementary disc included with Warner's seven-disc "Complete Thin Man Collection" highlights the series' stars on two documentaries. "William Powell: A True Gentleman" (30 min.) features film historians discussing Powell's life from the early days of motion pictures through a career that spanned some 90 motion pictures. A student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts — despite opposition from his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer — Powell had a successful theater career and moved to film after a director saw him on stage. Powell's first film role was a small one, as Professor Moriarty's assistant in a 1922 version of William Gillette's play "Sherlock Holmes," starring John Barrymore as the famous sleuth. His suave demeanor, dark, hooded eyes and pencil-moustache made him a natural to play villains in silent films. He also played a few comic roles during that period, too — a little bit of everything, in fact, appearing in a staggering 34 films between 1932 and 1938. With the advent of sound, Powell's cultured voice shot him to the top of the studios' A-lists, and he starred in a series of successful thrillers as urbane detective Philo Vance. After a Depression-era box office drop, Powell found his career cooling — until he was chosen to play Nick Charles in The Thin Man, the first in the immensely popular series of films that put him back on top. Always one to admire a sassy dame, Powell was briefly married to Carole Lombard, after which they remained good friends. He was also engaged to Jean Harlow at the time of her death and was, by all reports, devastated — and then received a diagnosis of cancer a few months later and did radio work while recovered, returning to the screen a year later for Another Thin Man. He made a number of other memorable films — including Life with Father (1947) and his last title, Mister Roberts (1955) — and retired at 61. The documentary, narrated by Michael York (not Kevin Kline, as stated on the cover) is very basic, covering just the nuts and bolts of Powell's life and career, but for those unfamiliar with the actor's body of work, it gives some nice insights, including rarely seen clips from his silent-era films.

The second feature, "Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To" (46 min.), is a more quirky, detail-oriented piece, made by critic Richard Schickel and narrated by Kathleen Turner. Rather than a linear biography, the feature looks at Loy's Hollywood image through clips from the MGM library. In films like Test Pilot, Wife vs. Secretary, Libeled Lady, and Love Crazy, she played sassy, eyebrow-raised dames who were smart as well. But it took awhile for Hollywood to figure out how to use her to her best advantage — in the early days of film, Loy's almond-shaped eyes got her work as geisha girls, lusty gypsies, and exotic vamps. But talkies were good to her, with her terrific voice and sly wit, and by the mid-1930s she'd become MGM's most popular female star. 'Popular," however, didn't translate to "well-treated," and she made history when she went on strike to pressure MGM into giving her a pay raise requisite with her earning power — and she got it. The Thin Man franchises were part of what made her such a hot commodity, but they also helped cement her image as the "perfect wife," an image she found ironic given the foibles of her personal life and her four failed marriages. Privately, she took time off from her career to devote herself to the war effort during WWII, making no films from 1942 to 1946 while she lived in New York, working for the Red Cross and overseeing entertainment for military hospitals. Loy later did theater in New York. Schickel's documentary does a nice job of touching on all aspect of Loy's lengthy career, all the way to the honors she received at the Kennedy Center (hosted, not coincidentally, by Kathleen Turner) and her last role, in the TV movie Summer Solstice with Henry Fonda. While Turner gets far too much screen time for a feature that's ostensibly about Loy, it's still a nice tribute to one of Hollywood's great actresses.

Warner Bros. DVD Alias Nick & Nora offers very clean, crisp transfers of both featurettes, presented in their original full-screen ratios (1.33:1). Also on board is an episode from the 1958 "This Man" TV series starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk and a 1936 Lux Radio Theater broadcast of The Thin Man starring Loy and Powell.

This film records a 12 day ritual performed by Mambudiri Brahmins in Kerala, southwest India, in April 1975. This event was possibly the last performance of the Agnicayana, a Vedic ritual of sacrifice dating back 3,000 years and probably the oldest surviving human ritual. Long considered extinct and never witnessed by outsiders, the ceremonies require the participation of seventeen priests, involve libations of Soma juice and oblations of other substances, all preceded by several months of preparation and rehearsals. They include the construction, from a thousand bricks, of a fire altar in the shape of a bird.

Around 1500 B.C., nomads who spoke an Indo-European language entered India and evolved a complex ritual involving the cults of fire and Soma, a hallucinogenic plant that grew in the Western Himalayas. Their Vedic language developed into Sanskrit, the classical language of Indian civilization. Among the later religions of India, Hinduism accepted and Buddhism rejected the Vedic culture. But both retained many of its ritual forms and recitations. Some of these have traveled all over Asia. Agni, the fire, is still worshipped with the help of Vedic mantras in Japanese Buddhist temples. In India itself, the preservation of the Agnicayana, though partly explained by the extraordinary conservatism of the Vedic Brahmins and their dedication to the culture of their spiritual ancestors, remains one of the miracles of history.

A key work by American filmmaker James Benning and both a complex and challenging film in every sense. Through an iridescent blend of image, text and sound, Benning recounts the history of the USA from 1954 to 1976.

The images: memorabilia relating to baseball legend Hank Aaron. The scrolling, handwritten text: excerpts from the diary of Arthur Bremer, the man who tried to assassinate US presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972 (and the inspiration for the character of Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver). The sounds: chart toppers, radio broadcasts and political speeches from the Fifties to the Seventies.

The restoration coincided with the Film Museum’s first DVD release of the films of James Benning. In November 2011, the Film Museum presented the completed restoration for the first time at a special screening in the presence of James Benning. The international premiere took place at the 69th Venice Film Festival on September 4, 2012.

Restored in 3K from the original 16mm camera reversal print.
Sound restored by La Camera Ottica (Gorizia) and Amann Studios (Vienna) from the 16mm magnetic track.

This 3-1/4 hour DVD celebrates the largest international collaboration in decades to preserve and present American films found abroad. It draws from an extraordinary cache of nitrate prints that had been safeguarded in New Zealand and virtually unseen in decades. Through a partnership between the New Zealand Film Archive and American film archives, the NFPF arranged for 176 films to be shipped to the United States for preservation to 35mm film. Treasures New Zealand brings some of these major discoveries to DVD. None of the films have been presented before on video; in fact, none were even thought to exist just four years ago.

Treasures New Zealand not only resurrects lost works by major directors—John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Mabel Normand—but also samples the variety of American pictures exported abroad and saved through this project. Industrial films, news stories, cartoons, travelogues, serial episodes, previews, comedies—Treasures New Zealand samples them all. The line-up features:

John Ford’s Upstream (1927) and a preview for his lost Strong Boy (1929)

The White Shadow (1924), 3 reels from the first surviving feature credited to Alfred Hitchcock, the assistant director, art director, writer, and editor

Won in a Cupboard (1914), the first surviving film directed by and starring Mabel Normand

Lyman H. Howe’s Famous Ride on a Runaway Train (1921), reunited with its sound-effects disc for the first time in decades

Stetson’s Birth of a Hat (ca. 1920)

The Love Charm (1928), a South Seas romance filmed in two-color Technicolor by Ray Rennahan

The cartoon Happy-Go-Luckies (1923), 5 newsreel stories, and an episode from Dolly of the Dailies (1914) in which the unstoppable newspaperwoman saves the day and gets the scoop

That films lost in the United States came to be found 7,000 miles away speaks volumes about the international popularity of American movies from the very start. By 1926, America made 90% of all commercial pictures screened around the world. When distributors sent prints abroad, they expected that theatrical prints would be shipped back or destroyed at the end of their run. In New Zealand, a last stop on the exhibition circuit, some prints fell into the hands of eager collectors and ended up at the NZFA. Today hundreds of American movies from the silent era that were not saved in the U.S. survive abroad.

The Treasures New Zealand films can be shared today thanks to the stewardship of the New Zealanders, the preservation work directed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and UCLA Film & Television Archive, and the contributions of hundreds of donors. The National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Argyros Family Foundation underwrote the production. Net proceeds will support further film preservation.

So let’s savor the discoveries, giving a round of applause to the New Zealand Film Archive for sharing its treasures and the American archives for preserving them, and hope that this exciting collaboration spearheaded by the NFPF blazes the trail for many more to come.

Kiss (1963-64, silent), 34 minutes, 16 mm, B & W
Kiss is a series of 3 1/2 minute silent films of various people kissing. These short films are strung together to make a longer film. There is man & women kissing, women & women, man & man etc...

Unearthed from Moscow's legendary Soyuzmultfilm Studios (est. 1935), the 41 films in ANIMATED SOVIET PROPAGANDA span sixty years of Soviet history (1924 - 1984), and have never been available before in the U.S.

The set is divided thematically into four discs, all dealing with different subjects of the Soviet propaganda machine.

AMERICAN IMPERIALISTS (disc 1) contains seven films, almost all of which are drawn from the Cold War era. The recurring image is of the money hungry industrialist self-destructing because of his greed.

FASCIST BARBARIANS (disc 2) is a 17 film reaction to the Nazi invasion of 1941. While Americans were mocked relentlessly, at least they remained human. After breaking the non-aggression pact and declaring war, the Nazis became animals in the propaganda films, turning into snarling warthogs and depraved vultures.

CAPITALIST SHARKS (disc 3) contains six films that take on the bourgeoisie the world over - and sometimes beyond. In INTERPLANTERY REVOLUTION (1924), capitalists escaping to Mars discover the revolution has spread throughout the galaxy.

ONWARD TO THE SHINING FUTURE: COMMUNISM (disc 4) contains 11 works, most of which mythologize the state and envision the inevitable utopias of the future. Dziga Vertov's SOVIET TOYS (1924), however, offers criticism of the state. Generally agreed to be the first Russian animated film, it satirizes the communist members who cashed in on Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP), which introduced a limited form of capitalist enterprise.

Containing 6 hours of rare material in all, this four-disc DVD set offers a fascinating look at the history of Soviet propaganda. It is an invaluable resource that displays how one of the greatest and most reclusive powers wanted their people to envision the rest of the world, as well as being an idiosyncratic tour through Russia's rich and varied history of animated art.

# - New, restored high-definition digital transfer
# - New video interview with architect Arata Isozaki
# - Gaudí, Catalunya, 1959, footage from director Hiroshi Teshigahara's first trip to Spain
# - Visions of Space: Antonio Gaudí, a one-hour documentary on the architect's life and work
# - A BBC program on Gaudí by director Ken Russell
# - Sculptures by Sofu—Vita, a short film by Teshigahara on the sculpture of his father, Sofu Teshigahara
# - Original theatrical trailer

This new DVD compiles eight short films by Peter Tscherkassky, including multi-awarded breathtaking Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine and his most recent film Coming Attractions. Along "Films from a Dark Room" (INDEX008) featuring internationally celebrated Tscherkassky´s found footage trilogy - L´arrivée, Outer Space, Dream Work - this new release on INDEX offers an exhilarating excursion in Peter Tscherkassky´s radical cinema.

Short films included:

Parallel Space: Inter-view - (1992, 18 min)

Parallel Space: Inter-View is made with a photo camera. A miniature photo is exactly the size of two film frames. Optically it resembles a flickering double exposure; the former temporal and spatial unity disintegrates into pieces which have a correspondence with each other. (Peter Tscherkassky) Photographic processes - the material transformations involved in recording, developing, printing and projecting - functions as metaphors for psychological processes.

Erotique - (1982, 1 min 40 sec)

One can determine a line in Tscherkassky's oeuvre which turns around a game with filmic presentation, with degrees of recognizability - with the only-just and the not-any-more. Just to see desire. An example of this is Erotique. One sees swirling pictures, parts of a woman's face, red lips, eyes in cyclical fragments of movement. Often it is difficult to tell which part of the body one actually sees (whoever wants to can see/imagine/think sexual organs and sexual acts.) The gaze gets hung up on partial objects, no integral, whole body to think about. No body, whose representation was always one of the problems in cinema.

Happy-End - (1996, 11 min)

A found footage film about oral rituals, about festive occasions and about a married couple who understood how to enrich and enliven their cosy togetherness. We see the pair pouring drinks, cutting cakes, making toast. Finally the exuberant movement of the dancing woman freezes. It is a deeply ambiguous moment that, from the expression on her face, allows one to think of something close to despair. On something like a modern, alienated, baroque vanity motive, which is still present in the Austrian tradition, and whose abrasion with the sensual certainty of the moment of drinking an egg liqueur gives Happy End a wider meaning.

Shot - Countershot - (1987, 22 sec)

Not a stage direction, but rather something very concrete is hidden behind the technical term. Something which betrays a little of the yearning for intelligent and playful dealings with the medium of short film.... (Marli Feldvoss) Shot-countershot - the idea of the century.

Nachtstück (Nocturne) - (2006, 1 min)

We glide into "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," soon to abandon standardized paths of conventional representational film and encounter a few seconds of passionate sensorial film - an example of what may be called "physical cinema." The thesis: Master Mozart would have enjoyed it.

Coming Attractions - (2010, 25 min)

A film woven around the idea that between early cinema and avant-garde film exists a connection.

Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine - (2005, 17 min)

An attempt to transform a Roman Western into a Greek tragedy.

Ballett 16 - (1984, 4 min)

In this film Tscherkassky's interest was in the individual frame as constituting the core of filmic creation found early expression in several works based on satiric images or photographic frame enlargements, including Liebesfilm (1982), Sechs uber Eins (1982) and Motion Picture (1984). In the case of Ballett 16, 256 frame enlargments of a continuous dance movemnt were dissected into 16 segments, each consisting of 16 frames. These segments were rearranged and rephotographed frame-by-frame. The resulting synthetic composition of movement was rephotographed off a screen running at twice its normal speed in order to accelerate the final film.

AloneThis film is about immeasurable loneliness of child, only loneliness and nothing more. Story was shoot without any manipulation means. Trip to prison, meeting, way home. That’s all. Movie leading to ethical problem, how deep into person’s pain we can interfere, documentary can interfere. (taken from his website www.stonys.lt)

Open the door to him, who comesTo make this film was very old dream. Shooting was started in 1988, it was before gaining independence. Only being of father Stanislovas was something incredible these days. Unlocked doors from his barn where were stored priceless reliquaries, books. Not locked church with artworks inside. Unconditional trust... It impressed not only me.

Earth of the blind

The film was formed from at least three single ideas. Story about cow which is being lead to butchery. Second story is about simple joys, about climbing hill and going down by disabled carriage. Third story is about blind. All these stories have joined intuitively in somekind of irrational way. Big eyes of cows mingled blind people eyes.

Apostle of ruins

While shooting “Tree days” (director Sarunas Bartas) I met Georgian Alexander Oboladze. We lived in the same hotel room. From restaurants and parties tycoon he became completely single. For me strange is the situation then man is stranded away from homeland but haven’t lost his mentality, language; just like exotic tree grown up in Lithuania. He was wandering around Vilnius old town, knew every corner and basement of it like no one else. He was looking and finding lost time, things left by other men and creating from it his own unique world.

Flying over the blue field

After “Antigravitation” I wanted to make another step up, where disappears last prop under your feats. “Flying over blue field” – movie about loneliness in infinite sky. Man stays with himself, home-made plane and balance on the limit between death and life.

Harbour

While shooting “Flying over blue field” we lived in Birtonas sanatorium hotel. I was watching treatment procedures. People were plunging into bubble, mud and mineral water baths. They were going circles singing, were standing under cold water spouts. All this seemed like a sacred ritual, that frees from scurf of life. They were naked, like just born, without any signs of standing in society. Movie – silent impression about tired people "harbour".

Fedia. Three minutes after the big bang.

Fedia – man living in little yellow house next to Gariūnai marketplace. To him life seems simple, completely transparent and without any hidden truths. Cosmic problems are far away from him. Next to him is world, where lives astrophysics manipulating with numbers, which are so big that do not have names. These two worlds exist next to each other.

At the end of the nineteen twenties, two future film-makers discover their medium. Charles Dekeukeleire and Henri Storck will become famous documentary film-makers, but their debuts consist of experiments and the search of a 'pure cinema'. With the occasional surrealists Henri d'Ursel and Ernst Moerman, they make up the first avant-garde generation in Belgian cinema.

Seven composers wrote the music for these unique films: Joachim Brackx, Eric Sleichim, Jan Van Outryve, Annelies Van Parys (in residence at Transparant) and Mireille Capelle, Geert Callaert and Thomas Smetryns (in residence at HERMES ensemble). The works for ensemble are performed by the HERMES ensemble conducted by Koen Kessels. In the essay that accompanies the two DVDs, Xavier Canonne reconstructs the thrilling years 1927-1937.

DISCO 1:

Scenes of Ostend(Henri Storck, 1929, 10'55)Composition by Joachim BrackxFilm organized in visual chapters: the port, the anchors, the wind, the meerschaum, the dunes, the North Sea... a series of images which are completely freed of anecdote and illustration. Water, sand and waves become an integral part of the filmic vocabulary.

For Your Beautiful Eyes(Henri Storck, 1929, 6'31)Composition by Joachim Brackx"Félix and I decided to move into film-making. I had shot Images d'Ostende (Scenes of Ostend) in 1929, but the ideas for the next film, Pour vos beaux yeux (For Your Beautiful Eyes), came from Félix." In eight minutes and 75 shots, the film tells the story of a young man who finds a glass eye in a park, becomes obsessed with the object and attempts to get rid of it by sending it through the post. With Henry Van Vyve in the main role (Labisse and his sister Ninette made an appearance only in the first third of the script), the film was a clear surrealist statement, one year after Un chien andalou and its razorcut eye.

Story of the Unknown Soldier(Henri Storck, 1932, 10'38)Composition by Annelies Van ParysFor Histoire du soldat inconnu (Story of the Unknown Soldier) Storck watched newsreels for the whole of 1928, the year when 60 nations signed a pact outlawing war, and juxtaposed this heart-warming utopia with the signs of a forthcoming conflict (this was in 1932) - burgeoning nationalism, police brutality, excessive colonialism, bellicose politics. Ferocious editing sarcastically juxtaposes these good intentions with the political farce of speeches and parades, all to the tune of factory chimneys collapsing in slow motion and the exhumed body of an "unknown soldier".

Pictures on the Sideline(Henri Storck, 1932, 10'47)Composition by Jan Van OutryveJust like he did for Histoire du soldat inconnu (Story of the Unknown Soldier), Storck uses newsreels from 1928, which he distorts, although in a more humanistic and slapstick way. He combines images of the crowd, police repression, explosions, riots and fire with images of gymnasts, music halls, models and sea lions, which make it all the more disturbing.

Boxing MatchCharles Dekeukeleire, 1927, 7'30)Composition by Eric SleichimWhen Charles Dekeukeleire makes Combat de boxe (Boxing Match), he is 22 years old and obsessed with cinema. He immediately aligns himself with the defenders of pure cinema, Germaine Dulac, Jean Epstein, Marcel L'Herbier, Louis Delluc. He also admires Vertov and his conception of the Kino-Glaz, the cameraeye. A poem by Paul Werrie served as starting point for this film which is based on a high-speed montage, close-ups, superimpositions, the successive use of the negative and positive image and the principle of rhythm. The violence of the fight, the presence of the audience, the tension between the crowd and the ring are swept up in a dazzling choreographic montage.

Visions of LourdesCharles Dekeukeleire, 1932, 17'54)Composition by Annelies Van ParysCharles Dekeukeleire, a questioning Catholic, is spurred into making this documentary by a pilgrimage undertaken by the Catholic Young Workers' Movement. The director's approach is one of critical reflection - emotional and fervent, often acerbic - on the site of the most crystal-clear credulities and beliefs of all. Processions of pilgrims brush past artful bigots and candle sellers; water pours down in all its forms like the strings of rosary beads sold at the display stands; the sick, patiently awaiting the miracle, are cut against images of the gifts to the Holy Virgin (hieratic crutches suspended in their hundreds inside the Sacred Grotto, letters imprisoned by the thousand in metal grilles open to our view and the incredible sight of a floor strewn with leather corsets and wooden legs).

DISCO 2

Impatience(Charles Dekeukeleire, 1928, 36'20)Composition by Thomas SmetrynsAn introductory title informs the spectator that the film will be composed of four series of images, "the motorbike, the woman, the mountain and abstract blocks", elements which serve as the starting point for Dekeukeleire to construct his film according to very precise parameters. The rhythm is given by a mathematical fragmentation of the film's running time, divided up into temporal segments where the four repertories of images succeed each other in every possible combination with no respect for either melodic line or dramatic tension.

Detective Story(Charles Dekeukeleire, 1929, 50'52)Composition by Geert CallaertA woman, concerned about the continual absences of her husband, commissions a detective to follow him and report back to her. At first glance this appears to be a classic fictional device, all the more so since Charles Dekeukeleire segments his film with titles informing us of the latest developments of the story. Yet this framework serves only to set up a narrative pretext for disrupting narrative itself in favour of pure cinema. For the detective uses photographic equipment as an instrument of investigation: thus, the camera becomes the principal character and its subjectivity the principal subject of the film. Titles designed by painter Victor Servranckx.

The Pearl(Henri d'Ursel, 1929, 33'23)Composition by Mireille CapelleThe count Henri d'Ursel shot La perle (The Pearl) under the pseudonym of Henri d'Arche "in the flush of inexperience", as he put it. D'Ursel made only one film, based on a screenplay by the poet Georges Hugnet. In a Paris straight out of the serials of Louis Feuillade, the hero goes in search of a pearl which constantly disappears in a string of bizarre encounters - sneak thieves in a hotel wearing body stockings à la Musidora, a beautiful fiancée on a bicycle and a somnambulist walking the rooftops in a night-shirt, amorous fantasies in the undergrowth. Hugnet himself played this waking dreamer, haunted by an unending eroticism reflected in the images.

Fantômas(Ernst Moerman, 1937, 17'16)Composition by Geert CallaertErnst Moerman was an ardent fan of Souvestre and Allain's character Fantômas, whom he dubbed "the demoralizing gentleman", he made him the emblematic hero of his medium-length silent film, Monsieur Fantômas. Shot on a shoestring budget on a beach and in an old cloister, the style of this scathing surrealist satire is immediately recognizable as that of the Feuillade serials. In top hat and tails, the Master of Crime (played by the future father of French singer Johnny Hallyday) tours the world in pursuit of the beautiful Elvire, punctuating his travels with mischief and acts to offend proper decency. The film encompasses amour fou, the meanders of dreams, fanatical anti-clericalism and a plea for subversion and adventure in "a world where nothing is impossible, where the miracle is the shortest route from our uncertainty to mystery" (E. Moerman).

In the latter half of the 20th Century, Raymond Rohauer was one of the nation's foremost proponents of experimental cinema. Programming diverse films at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles, and making the films in his personal archive available for commercial distribution, he helped preserve and promote avant-garde cinema.

This two-DVD collection assembles some of the most influential and eclectic short films in the Rohauer Collection, including works by Man Ray, Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, Watson & Webber, Fernand Léger, Joris Ivens, Dimitri Kirsanoff, Jean Epstein, and Orson Welles.